WILMINGTON, Mass. — Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli, who’s scheduled to meet with concussed center Marc Savard and the player’s agent this weekend, sounds like a man that expects he won’t have Savard for the long haul and will gain flexibility by placing the player on LTIR.

Today when asked about what he’d like to add to his team between now and the Feb. 28 trade deadline, Chiarelli included a center on his shopping list that has defenseman written on it in permanent ink.

“I’d like to try and get a defenseman that could help our group. I think our defense has played very well. But to try to ease some of the minutes off of our players,” said the GM after his team practiced at Ristuccia Arena. “And, of course, without Marc – again I’m not going to replace him exactly; that player is not available – but you can replace bits and pieces of it and hope that some of that stuff falls into place and some of that stuff falls on the shoulders of the other players.”

As always, the asking prices are high in early February.

“Right now, everything is very, very tight,” said Chiarelli. “You hear that from me every year a month before the deadline and it’s even more true now. The standings are tight. Usually your trading partners are in the West. It’s very, very tight.”

Burke would make a trade with PC because he has four picks in the first two rounds Brian needs draft picks. Kaberle’s PP skills would suit the Bs very well. Tomáš’s +/- reflect a bad team he would be just fine in Julien’s system.

torched on the kessel deal? i hate this argument. so far they have had similar rookie seasons, without a few weeks lost to cancer for seguin and a seriously different coach. they have somewhat similar skill sets and strengths, and likewise, similar knocks on their play. different attitudes and hype, thats it really. the biggest loss to burke is all the draft picks, because he is trying to rebuild, but the final result remains to be seen, and is all that really matters in the long run.

MCK I can see your point on Burkey trying to get as much as he can. He’d love to recoup a first rounder that won’t be as high as his actual (our) pick. That may be possible if a contender in the east loses a D-man and are hamstrung. I wouldn’t give him a first but I’d also like to see T.O without Kabby. A lottery pick is not out of the question. I’m glad they didn’t use Reimer earlier. I have not seen him let in a bad goal yet.

Burke would trade with anyone. He made the Kessel deal so a trade with Boston is not out of the question. However, it looks like he got torched on the Kessel deal, so I don’t know how that will affect him.

Would Burke trade Kaberle within his division. I know he can be soft but he’s got skill. I have to watch the Leafs all the time and he’s playing and carrying a 20 year old stiff. I wouldn’t want to pay too much but I know Burke will only have so many teams to deal with and they’re all in the East.